Category: Film

The A To Z Of SFF: S Is For The Survivalist

What would survival in a post-oil society be like? As life slips back into an agrarian, hard-scrabble existence, how can we find meaning or even happiness? How much do we have to lose before we lose our essential humanity?
Stephen Fingleton’s cult psychodrama The Survivalist takes on these questions and weaves a taut story of uneasy trust and betrayal from the tangled threads. A film to admire, and one that gives you a lot to think about…

For a more informed take on the film, check out director Stephen Fingleton in conversation with Stuart Wright on the excellent Britflicks podcast…

http://www.britflicks.com/Podcast/23938

The Survivalist is out now on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD.

The A To Z Of SFF: H Is For Howl’s Moving Castle

It was inevitable that the Curious Crew would talk about a Studio Ghibli film at some point. And what better example than there be than Miyazaki’s adaptation of Diana Wynne-Jone’s novel? An explicitly anti-war film that absorbs, refracts and re-projects the source text (already a thing of beauty) into a rare and remarkable piece of fantasy fiction. If you’ve never seen a Ghibli film… start here!

The A To Z Of SFF: F Is For Forbidden Planet

Rob, Clive and Curiosity celebrate a landmark piece of SF in the shape of the 1956 classic, Forbidden Planet. Widely recognised as a formative text in the creation of Star Trek, and influential in the production and sound design of Star Wars and many other examples of filmed and TVSF. If you like the fiction of sciencey, you need to be all over this film.

Worst name for a starship ever, though…

The A To Z Of SFF: S Is For Star Trek: Beyond

A five year mission. A villain with a secret past. A warrior princess. A crew without a ship. A family without a home. Faced with a situation like this, there’s only one way to go… and that’s BOLDLY.

Join Rob, Clive and Curiosity as they fire up the warp engines and engage… in a discussion on the merits of 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond.

Spoilers, needless to say, are in abundance. Alert Condition Red for that, yeah?

Oh, and we like the Rihanna track that plays over the end credits.

The A To Z Of SFF: X Is For X-Men: Apocalypse

2016’s X-ample of mutant heroics may not have got the love of First Class, and it does have problems. But allow us to X-plain why there are still X-citing moments that make the film worth your time.

Fair warning: there’s some pretty hard core X-men geekery on display. Rob and Clive have no shame. I’m not X-aggerating.

 

Rollerball: The Harmony Of Havoc

As a follow-up to our A To Z piece on Rollerball last week, friend of the blog and avid Rollerball fan Chris Rogers approached us with a piece that digs into the themes and visual style of the classic SF movie. We’re delighted to present it, in full Multivision.

Continue reading Rollerball: The Harmony Of Havoc

The A To Z Of SFF: R Is For Rollerball

One of the classics. A gem of dystopian SF, and a great example of a sports movie to boot. A rare example of an intelligent box-office hit: a film that lets its audience make up their own minds about Jonathon E and the society that both embraces and rejects him.

Clive mentioned William Harrison’s 1973 short story “The Rollerball Murders”, the source material for the film. Read the whole thing here.